My Painting Process
My Painting Process presents insights, techniques, materials and behind-the-scenes looks of how my artwork develops and comes to life.
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And that went fast
And that went fast – Summer. What the heck happened? How is it possible you are leaving us so soon? It seem like you were only a blur this year. Anyone else feel this way? Oh, I know we can all be too busy – but this time of year I stop to smell the roses. Literally! I always say that is the sun is out…I’m out. Only this year the sun was elusive, the weather was wet, often smokey and incredible humid! And a lot of the blooms literally rotted on the bush. Yes, I know you know but I feel obligated to complain a bit more and remind…
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Dancing With the Sun
I love it when paintings name themselves. Quite often as I am working on them, the name just comes to me and it almost always is the right name for the piece. This was one of those times. Dancing With the Sun. Just feels right Were you aware that sunflowers move so that their “face” follows the sun? I think that this was so cool. So the flowers really do a slow dance with the sun each day and I danced under the sunflowers. It’s no wonder this flower makes everyone feel so much joy. The beautiful complementary yellow flowers against summers cobalt blue sky – so beautiful. Here are…
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Thoughts of Spring
I can’t help myself, whenever the sun come out this time of year I get spring fever! The days are noticeably longer and I imagine the sun is actually warmer. So much so that I started a painting of Rockwood Park in the spring. I needed a change of colour…just kidding. Fresh off the Easel Spring Promises 24 x 20” oil on gallery wrap canvas I’m so pleased with this painting. You may recall that I have been focusing much of my Plein Air work on painting skies. What I have learned from all this is that the sky needs to be painted in one session. It is so important…
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My Journey into Plein Air…so far
This is a Learning Journey Initially my goal was to focus on sea and sky, and in particular, skies. For years I painted with watercolours mainly because I was confident with the media and it’s portability. To be fair, when I started Plein Air painting I was pretty much an accomplished studio watercolour painter. I thought the transition to Plein Air would be easy for me. For the most part it was. My first attempt with water mixable oils was another story altogether. I was attempting to paint in a high altitude desert in Wyoming. I certainly didn’t know my materials and certainly was unprepared for the dry mountain air. …
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My Painting Process
Phase 1: Exploring the concept Often I will have an idea of something I would like to explore as a subject to paint. My first step is to scan through thousands of my reference photos looking for that aha moment. Should that moment of inspiration escape me, I make a plan for how to get there, thumbnail sketches, wishful thinking, researching etc. Most often this will include a photography road trip or several. Quite often it will include a Plein Air painting session, which is one of my favourite activities. I typically work in series so I’m pretty specific with what I am looking for and what I think I…
